Roman Reigns Is Your WWE World Heavyweight Champion, Now What?

Last night, Vince McMahon literally went “Attitude Era” with RAW. There were hardcore matches, appearances from the boss himself and another one of his gauran-damn-tees that usually revolve around a must-win or else title situation. When the dust was settled, Roman Reigns did what he couldn’t do at WWE TLC this past Sunday. He beat Sheamus to become a two-time WWE World Heavyweight Champion.

There’s some sentiment to Reigns win, that being he won the title in Philadelphia, the same place that literally boo him out of the building at this past January’s Royal Rumble. The crowd had reason to. Since it was all but certain that Reigns was going to win after the early elimination of Daniel Bryan, the crowd effectively turned into an emperor at the Roman Coliseum. Not even The Rock could save Roman from the boo birds as he was left with some of the first legit boos since he turned Hollywood back in 2003.

Reigns returned to Philly last night and instead of getting boo’d, the crowd roared and cheered loudly at his victory. He even made mention of it post-match, thanking the Philadelphia crowd for kicking his ass that night.

“Hey, for real, though, it wasn’t that long ago at Royal Rumble … y’all know what it was, it was rough,” Reigns told the live crowd. “But a lot of my progression, and a lot of my focus and motivation came from that night, so in a weird hindsight way, thank you so much, guys. Hey, life ain’t fair and sometimes you’ve gotta get kicked in the ass to get better, and that’s what happened. And that’s why we’re here now. Thank you so much, I’ll never forget tonight.”

Well, now what? Reigns is champion and he’s going to need a list of heels to run through. Which means until WrestleMania and whomever wins the Royal Rumble (plz be Brock Lesnar, plz), Reigns is probably going to spend a couple of months fighting the League of Nations over the belt. Or feuding even more with Triple H. Or hell, getting into a tiff with John Cena for no other reason than Cena tying Ric Flair’s 16 separate reigns as World Champion.

Either way it goes, Reigns spent a year in a weird space not just with creative who wanted him to be the heir to John Cena badly, or watching his former Shield buddies in Seth Rollins & Dean Ambrose not only bcome great singles stars but great talkers too. Roman was the hand-picked man by Vince McMahon and now, he’s got the strap — and no obstacles in front of him to try and deter that.

Or hopefully nothing along the lines of tater tots or sufferin’ sucotash.

About The Author

Brandon Caldwell is the founder & editor-in-chief of Day & A Dream. His work has appeared in VIBE, UPROXX, Complex, EBONY, the Village Voice, the Houston Press, Houston Style Magazine, DJBooth, The Sports Fans Journal, and more. Follow him on Twitter: @_brandoc